Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Whilst working for the UN in Kosovo, I drove with my then wife to the Pelion peninsular in Greece for a long weekend break. It was early November and raining heavily when we crossed the border into Greece. We drove up into the mountains to explore and at lunchtime found a remote taverna in a little mountain village that seemed all but deserted. In the taverna, a log fire was blazing and two other couples were enjoying a meal by the fire. I could just hear them speaking English. I thought they were English but my wife thought they were American.

On a recent flight I was sitting beside a lady who was on my left hand side. Flight passed fine and I went to the hotel at the destination. Next morning while having breakfast I looked left and there she was at the next table we were flabbergasted.

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<p>My "system " was to bet on the reoccurring numbers.<br />
If , say, 7 has just come, I will put (minimal bet ) on it, if it wins (chance 1/37 , alright, I put it again. )<br />
If 7 has not won and the winning number is, say, 10, I put on 7 and 10 in the next game, if one of them wins, I start the game anew with putting on the number which has just won, if none of them has won and the actual winning number was, say, 21 I put may bets on 7, 10, 21 in the next game and so on as long as one of the numbers has won.

On April 1 2016, I was laid off from my job. Around the same time, I found out the guy I had been dating for 9 months was seeing another woman. A couple of weeks after that, on my way to an appoint at a place we will call RW, I received a call that my father had passed (a few weeks before Father's Day), shortly after a small decorative dish fell off the counter and broke.
On April 2, 2019, I was laid off from my job. Around the same time, I found out my ex, who was my best friend and I thought we were getting back together, was seeing another woman.

I was 21. There was a concert happening in my local area, and my friend insisted we go to it. I had never actually heard of the band and was unsure if I should go. But she talked me into it and I was excited since they were apparently very popular. After the concert had ended, the drummer (Benji) came up to me and handed me his drumstick and wanted me to have it. It sparked a conversation between us. He then introduced me to his bandmate (Phil), to which I waved hello to and disappeared back onto the bus. When they left, Benji and I kept in touch for 6+ months.

My friend Peter, a bird enthusiast, found a dead petrel on Stewart Island off the southern tip of New Zealand. Petrels fly the southern oceans, circumnavigating the globe, stopping occasionally to lay an egg, and bring up a youngster before returning to the oceans.The bird had a ring, which he carefully extracted and sent back to the appropriate record keeping centre. Three months later, his parents (also bird enthusiasts) were attending the sherry party reception for a specialist birders weekend in Aberdeen and met a man who dedicated himself to bird ringing.

This series of happenings took place in roughly a 12 hour span...beginning in the
evening and ending the next morning. It was October of 2000 in Virginia when my then girlfriend gave me 2 books for my B-day. One was titled The Celestine Prophecy and the other was The new
Rolling Stone encyclopedia of rock and roll. I opened the latter around 9pm that evening and
started to read about Bob Marley...a favorite artist of mine. I then put the book down and turned on
the tv. I surfed some channels until I landed on a PBS program about..who else..Bob Marley, his music, and Jamaica politics.

>15th April, 2019 (yesterday ) was my worst day for months, probably for years. I felt physically and psychologically absolutely down. I was to lie on a field motionless for I don´t know how long, as if someone was about to die. Late in the afternoon I decided to go to a church to confess ( what I had not done for a long time ). I entered the nearby Catholic Church at appr. 18. 00, confessed and remained seated in a bank staring and semi-consciously listening what the priest was to say. I left at appr. 19.00.